


Down, Down, Down

by paperjamBipper



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Gen, Let Them Sleep, Why do I do this to myself, good news though: everyone makes it out okay!!!!, let's play 'spot the moana/tui parallels', none of the archive warnings apply but there are, some uncomfortable details about drowning, they are just. SO tired after this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 04:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9803420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperjamBipper/pseuds/paperjamBipper
Summary: Moana will not let the ocean repeat its past mistakes. She will not let it take from her what it took from her father.She will not lose her best friend to the seaA fight against a monster out at sea turns sour. Maui is dragged under the waves, and Moana is determined to do whatever it takes to get him back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt given to me by jadeoccelot on Tumblr, because I couldn't resist. Ideas for this story came to me the second I read this prompt:  
> "I don't think anyone has done this yet, but how about a situation where Moana has to save Maui from drowning? Like they fight a monster at sea and Maui gets dragged under and loses his hook during the fight, moana has to save him ocean helps too.exmp  
> actions"
> 
> Enjoy!

“Behind you!” Maui’s voice rings in Moana’s ear, and she whips around just as a large pink tentacle attempts to slam down on their canoe. Brandishing her oar, Moana keeps her stance and whacks at it as hard as she can to prevent it from causing any serious damage to the small vessel. She doesn’t whack hard enough to get the monster to retract its tentacle, but it recoils at the hit, giving Maui next to her enough time to spin around and assist her in fending it off with his hook. Once the monster under the waves seems to realize it’s up against two opponents instead of one, it whips its tentacle away from them and slams it down under the water, covering both Moana and Maui in a large, harsh spray of water.

After Moana and her people accidentally came across a small group of uncharted islands on the way home from a voyage, it was decided in a meeting with the village elders that they should send someone out to explore them and report back with information and any sort of unusual findings about them. From a distance, nothing seemed unusual about these islands, but many of the elders were curious as to why they were unable to find any records of these islands ever existing even from charts and maps left over from their ancestors, so they had decided they wanted to send someone to go investigate. Moana, itching for any chance she could get to be out exploring the seas, had volunteered herself and Maui to go check them out, and claimed that it would be better if they went alone in case the islands were inhabited. She claimed that a small canoe carrying only the duo who ‘made history’ by restoring the heart of Te Fiti together would make a lot better of a first impression on the island villagers than a large fleet of canoes would.

And they bought it. Even with her obviously exaggerated excuse she had made just to get Maui to come with her, they agreed with her and allowed her and Maui set out to explore these islands alone. Maui had seemed just as thrilled about the idea as she was when she told him, and they set out to explore them as soon as they possibly could.

However, they soon discovered the answers to those questions before they were even able to reach the _shore_ of one of those islands. The minute Moana saw that group of islands in the distance, she sped up the boat to reach one of their shores faster, and the minute she did, she seemed to have crossed over into some monster’s territory and the two of them were under attack before either could notice the change in the atmosphere. Whatever’s attacking them now must be the one in charge, because it doesn’t seem to want to stop until the small boat threatening its territory is destroyed.

“Here comes another one!” Moana calls to Maui as the water right in front of her starts to bubble violently. Before long, another large pink tentacle rises out of the water, and this time the monster below takes a much shorter pause before it tries to bring its tentacle down onto the boat. In the same way, Moana hesitates for less time before she whacks at it with the oar. She whacks at it this time with the side of the paddle, and doesn’t realize the mistake in this until she’s too late. The monster grips on to the oar, and begins to wrap the tentacle around it as it slowly drags Moana towards the water. Mona tightens her grip on the oar, stomps her feet roughly down on the ground, and slowly begins to step backwards. Out of the corner of her eye, Moana can see Maui moving to help her, but before he can do anything, Moana yanks the oar straight from the monster’s tentacle. The sheer force from the motion is enough to cause Moana to stumble back and fall. Glancing at Maui watching her in disbelief, she grins widely.

“Whoo!” she calls out excitedly, and stands herself to her feet. “Take _that!_ ” she says to the water, pointing at it with her oar for emphasis. She’s about to turn to give Maui a high five when a sudden harsh rumbling nearly knocks her back off of her feet. She immediately grips her oar close to her body, and watches as enough tentacles to surround the entire boat in a wall emerge from the water.

“How many tentacles could this thing possibly _have?_ ” Moana shouts, and next to her, Maui laughs.

“Couldn’t tell you if I wanted to, Curly. I’m usually only stuck dealing with multiple heads. Arms and limbs aren’t exactly my forte” He says, but before Moana can comment any further, he begins rushing towards the wall surrounding the boat and begins beating on them with his fish hook. Moana merely stands back and watches for a brief moment, but after noticing a pattern in the way Maui’s beating on them to get them to retract, Moana tightens her grip on her oar and begins to whack at them as well, copying Maui’s routine to get them to shrink back into the water. One by one, facing away from each other, the two of them whack almost every single tentacle back into the water.

When there are only four left, one on each side of the boat, Moana listens as all of them retreat back into the water at once. It’s followed after a few moments of silence by a sudden violent rocking of the boat, and then loud thrashing from the water, but Moana pays no attention, assuming that they had only been a result of the monster fleeing. Moana’s excited grin returns, and with her oar in her hand, she pumps her arms in the air.

“Yes!! We did it!!” She shouts happily, and whips around to face Maui.

“We-” She starts again, but her words get caught in her throat when she finds herself completely alone on her canoe.

“Maui?” She asks, looking in as many directions she can around the boat. “Where are you?” She asks, checking around just about every square inch of her surroundings for any sight of her friend. She forces the fear and panic building in her stomach aside as an annoyed expression settles to her face. She crosses her arms.

“This isn’t funny, Maui.” She says, part of her just _hoping_ that he’s just trying to play a stupid trick on her. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself, because I know for a fact _I’m_ not” she calls out loudly, and still gets nothing in response. Sighing in frustration, Moana rolls her eyes as she begins to make her way back to the controls.  

“Alright, fine, keep hiding from me, but if I leave without you I’m not coming b-” She starts, but gets cut off when she trips over something large sitting at the side of the canoe and slams down hard on the deck. Rubbing at her head, she grumbles in pain as she turns to look back at what she tripped over, and-

Her heart drops to her feet.

Just barely hanging onto the edge of the canoe by its sharp end is Maui’s fish hook.

Moana’s initial fear and panic rush back to her so quickly it makes her sick to her stomach, and she feels like she has to strain every muscle in her body just to get them to cooperate with her to let her stand to her feet.

When the two of them possibly could’ve been separated, Moana has no clue, and the awful way his hook is just _dangling by a thread_ off of the boat is only worsening Moana’s anxiety and making it harder to concentrate on thinking. She tries to look away, but for some reason she’s finding it unnecessarily difficult to pry her eyes away from it. When she finally gets her body to listen to her and turn her head away from it, the answer comes to her, and she whips her head back towards it so quickly she makes herself dizzy.

All of that violent rocking and awful thrashing she had heard earlier wasn’t from the monster leaving.

It was from the monster _dragging Maui to the bottom of the sea._

Another realization comes to Moana, and this one hits her so hard she nearly stumbles backwards.

Maui _doesn’t know how to swim._ Without his hook, he can’t transform into a fish and save himself, without his hook he can’t breathe under the water, and without his hook he could-

No.

_No._

Moana’s not even going to _consider_ it. She won’t let it happen. She _can’t_ let it happen.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she walks to the side of the boat and kneels besides Maui’s hook.  She dips her hand in the water.

“Ocean, are you there?” She asks, and the ocean immediately responds by swirling around her hand in a comforting manner.

“Good,” she says, huffing in relief. “Because I’m going to need you to do me a favor, okay?” She asks, and the ocean once again responds back by swirling around her hand.

“Whatever you do,” Moana says, removing her hand from the water as she stands to her feet. “Do _not_ pull me up until I tell you, okay?  Wait for me to signal to you and keep me under for as long as I can handle it” She says, and takes a few steps back. Taking the deepest breath she can manage, Moana sprints forward and dives down into the water.

Although her vision is already starting to blur, Moana does not stop. She will not stop until she finds Maui and gets him as far away from the bottom of the ocean as possible and above the waves where he belongs. Moana blinks heavily to help ease the sting in her eyes, and pushes herself down as hard as she can. She cannot see the ocean floor or the awful monster holding her best friend hostage. Down she pushes, determined to find him, down she pushes, determined to save him. Down, down, down, and when the ocean floor finally starts to become visible among the foggy darkness of the water, she’s overcome with relief, but it’s not long before it’s completely overruled with dread.

Sitting in the sand of the ocean floor is the monster that had tried to attack their boat. With two of its tentacles, it’s holding Maui up, another two are wrapped around his legs as restraints, and three more are tightly wrapped around his throat. Maui looks like he’s doing everything he can to break free, but nothing he’s doing seems to be helping. When he tries to kick his legs free, the monster violently yanks him down, and when he tries to pry the tentacles away from his neck the monster’s grip on it tightens.  

Moana opens her mouth to call out to him, but the scream she’s straining to hold back fights to break through, and Moana instead inhales a lungful of seawater. She immediately begins to choke, and as she gasps for the air she does not have, she sucks in more water and begins to choke harder. At the sound, Maui forces himself to open his eyes to look at her and the fear alone in his expression causes Moana to stop pushing and reach an arm out to him.

He calls something out to her, something she can’t hear, something that almost sounds like her name, and weakly tries to grab at her outstretched hand. However, before either of them can reach each other, Moana suddenly finds herself being yanked upwards the surface of the water, up towards her boat, and away from Maui, shrinking out of her sight.

The ocean plops her down onto the deck of her canoe, and Moana instantly props herself to her knees. She opens her mouth and coughs up all of the water that had been trapped in her lungs. Bringing a hand to her chest, Moana pushes herself into a sitting position and takes long, deep breaths to regain the air in her lungs. After taking a moment to collect herself, she scrambles towards the water and peers down to the bottom, down where her best friend is fighting for his _life._

Moana had grown up being told that the ocean is unforgiving. The ocean is cruel, and dark, and takes what it wants from who it wants. The ocean had taken from her father when he was younger.

But Moana knows better. The ocean also gives, and the ocean also _saves._ The ocean played with her as a baby. The ocean assisted her in restoring Te Fiti’s heart. The ocean is her friend. The ocean listens to her.

She will not let the ocean make the same mistake it made with her father. She will not let the ocean take from her what it took from him.

She will not lose her best friend to the sea.

Pushing herself to her feet, Moana reaches back and ties her hair up into a tight topknot. Then, slowly this time, she re-approaches the water.

“Bring us both up next time, okay?” She asks, firm but calm. “Don’t leave one of us down there if you can’t help the other. It’s both of us or neither of us” She says, and with fire burning in her eyes, Moana takes a few steps back before diving back into the water. This time, she’s sure of where he is, and she knows what to expect, and the determination this gives her is what causes Moana to kick and push harder than she’s ever done in her entire life. What might’ve been minutes of kicking before now only took her mere seconds. She takes a quick glance around, and it doesn’t take her long to spot the monster _still_ keeping Maui restrained just above the ocean floor. Moana pushes herself down until she’s distant enough away for him to be able to see her without her also catching the attention of the monster. She silently flails her arms around to get his attention, and he pops his eyes back open.

“Moana?” he manages to ask, gripping the tentacles on his neck and tugging them enough to allow him to speak. She nods in response, and then points up at the surface of the water as a means of saying _I’m going to get you out of here._ Maui nods, and Moana kicks down until she’s at his side. Gripping at the tentacles wrapped around his neck, she pulls them away as hard as she can, but no matter what she does, they won’t budge. When Moana fails, Maui once again begins trying to tug at them himself and is met with the same results. Frowning, Moana kicks backwards and begins to look around at her surroundings for an answer.

A few feet away, she spots a large rock nesting in the sand, and swims over to it to grab it. Returning to Maui’s side, she holds up the rock to show it to him, and shrugs apologetically before beginning to whack roughly at the tentacles wrapped around his neck. It doesn’t budge, and Moana frowns. Tightening her grip on the stone, she closes her eyes for a brief moment, allows herself to calm, and then pops her eyes back open as she whacks at the tentacle as hard as she possibly can. A loud screech emits from the monster, and all at once, it releases its grip on Maui and flees. Immediately, Moana drops the stone and grabs at his arm before tossing it over her shoulder. She takes one glance up at the water, and the ocean wraps itself around both of them as it pushes them to the surface.

Both of them take huge gasps of air as soon as they break the surface. They both then push themselves up unto the deck, and Moana allows Maui a few moments to catch his breath before she turns to look at him.

“You okay?” She wheezes out, and for a moment Maui only stares at her in disbelief like he’s not sure what to say.

“Yeah,” he says, winded, and pauses to catch his breath again. “You saved me” he says, and Moana smiles smugly at him.

“You are _so_ welcome” she says in a much more winded tone than she intends, and he glares at her for a short moment before he stands up.

“So,” he says once he’s able to form an entire sentence again. “You still up for exploring those islands?” He asks, and Moana huffs out a laugh.

“Maybe later” she says as she stands and walks to the controls. “For now I just think we should head back to Motunui and check in at the medical _fale_ for a few hours” She says, and Maui laughs quietly as he brings a hand to his head like he’s got a massive headache.

“Agreed”.

\--

The ocean is cruel and unforgiving.

Those the ocean unfairly take from are more so.


End file.
